Picture time

Here's what it's like trying to get a picture of Parker and Tracie together - not easy!!

Parker playing with Tracie's necklace instead of looking a the camera.....

Parker with a mouth full of bread.....

Both Parker and Tracie not looking at the camera.....bear in mind I am directly in front of them saying, "Look at the camera!"....

Trace remembers to look at the camera, but Parker gets distracted....again....

This was the best shot I got, and the sun was so bright Parker's face is shaded by his cap. Oh well, it's still a pretty cute pic!

What did we do before digital cameras and memory cards!?!?

Bird Man

Parker likes to chase pigeons. We were at the park yesterday and logged some excellent pigeon chasing time. Here is Parker eyeing the pigeons from across the way. He is in "on your mark, get set, go mode"...
Running toward and screaming at the pigeons....

Still running and screaming....I think stomping was added at this point as the birds weren't too scared.

Giving up trying to scare them, giving them bread crumbs as an afternoon snack.

My Back Yard

In this corner of the yard there is over 3 feet of water. Notice Parker's car floating around in the lake we've got.

Its hard to tell because these are camera phone pictures, but on this side the water is above the swings on the playset.

I made these about 9:00am, and there isn't much hope of the rain letting up today.

Flood Chasers

Mom and Dad are at our house this weekend. Mom and I decided to brave the rain and go to the store this afternoon. Here are some of the pics Mom took of the flooding around our neighborhood and Mt. Juliet.....
This is our neighborhood pond. It's not usually so high that it is in peoples actual back yards, but we thought this was a nice shot with the bird doing some fishing!

These two pics are of a strip mall close to our neighborhood on Mt. Juliet road. Not good.

We had passed this strip mall going to the store and when we were finished grocery shopping and heading home the road was blocked. We had to take an alternate route home!

This is a pic from the road that runs by the back side of our neighborhood. Usually, a small stream is running where you see the massive flooding overtaking the tractor.

It will be interesting to see if it is even worse tomorrow!!! Eeek!

Little Ballerina

On Saturday we were invited to Hallie's dance recital at the Cookeville Drama Center. Hallie's been dancing since she was just little bitty! This year she was in three of the performances. Not only is she a ballerina, but she also takes tap lessons. Hallie of course was the star of the show, an excellent dancer and her smile on stage was the best! Good job Hallie and thanks for including us!
As cute as Hallie was, you should have seen the baby ballerinas!

Kayla's Senior Prom

April 3rd, after our big Easter extravaganza, Kayla and Storm dropped by the Ponderosa on their way to the Kayla's senior prom. They were looking very fancy and we got a few photos of them just as the sun was setting! I'm sure they were the best looking couple at the prom!

Hippity, Hoppity, Easter's On Its Way!

Wish You Were Here

This morning we went to South Mountain. We drove up to Dobbins Lookout for a great view of both the city and the desert.

We were actually up higher than the planes coming into the city! Can you see the airplane coming in for a landing in this pic??? Look slightly above the buildings of Phoenix (the middle right of the city). I've been to Phoenix a few times, but I forgot it's a valley surrounded by mountains. I guess I just typically think of it as flat desert, but that is not the case. You can see there is even a little greenery in this pic...

I like big buttes and I cannot lie...

Before going to the A's game yesterday, we went for a morning hike. You can see we have on our A's gear (thanks for the shirt Trace) and the weather was perfect for butte climbing, not too hot yet.

Here's an action shot of J climbing toward the tip top of a butte...
Me enjoying the scenery and taking a break...

And this is a pic of the buttes from the start of the trail so you can get an idea of what we were actually climbing on...

Fun in the desert

Jay and I are in Phoenix. The weather is AWESOME. How does 82 and sunny sound? Today we went for a scenic desert drive with our destination being Tortilla Flat, a town that has a population of 6! I'm having trouble uploading pics so maybe I'll get a chance to post more in a day or two, but here's a couple for you to see what we've been up to today.....

This is J wearing a buffalo robe. It is the same robe Robert Redford wore in the movie Jeremiah Johnson. I've never heard of that movie, but I've got a feeling Dad probably has! We were in a museum at a ghost town we went to today. I'm not 100% certain that you were suppose to be wearing the robe but the "guide" was in the other room and we did pay $2 to get into the museum. ha ha!
This pic was part of our scenic drive. You can see when I say it's 82 and sunny, I mean sunny. There literally isn't a cloud in the sky. I thought this was a neat pic because there probably aren't many lakes surrounded by cacti.